The surprising origin of the phrase 'over the top'

"That is seriously OTT," one of my friend's children said recently about a shiny backless catsuit her mother wore to a 1970s-themed party.

Many things were OTT in the 1970s. Bell-bottoms were wider than the Grand Canyon and bare feet were dirtier than the US election.

I didn't think my friend's outfit was all that OTT, but I found her daughter's use of the condensed phrase interesting. OTT, or "over the top", has lasted a lot longer than many of its slangy cousins have. (When last did you hear "Safe, my mate"?)

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OTT was shortened to three letters in the 1980s, but its use as a synonym for outrageous, camp, excessive, ostentatious, in-your-face silliness goes back to the 1930s.

According to the Phrase Finder, it first appeared in print in a 1935 article by New York journalist and communist sympathiser Lincoln Steffens, who wrote: "I had come to regard the New Capitalism as an experiment till, in 1929, the whole thing went over the top and slid down to an utter collapse."

That, as anyone who knows anything about military history will now be typing in a corrective letter, was of course not the first time the phrase "over the top" was used. Before it took on the figurative aspect now associated with gold hoop earrings and skimpy catsuits, and long before it was abbreviated, "over the top" was synonymous with bravery, extreme risk and almost-inevitable tragedy.

One hundred years ago, when World War 1 was in full swing - although that is far too gaudy a term for the carnage that took place in Europe - the phrase "over the top" was used by British foot soldiers who climbed out of their trenches onto open ground and exposed themselves to enemy fire so that they could attack their opposite numbers, who were usually encamped in their own trenches on the other side of the battlefield.

In his World War 1 memoir A Rifleman Went to War, Herbert W McBride writes: "When the Scots go into battle, or over the top, in an offensive, their pipers go along ... never missing a note or a step, skirling those wild, heart-rending airs ... they march into battle as though no such things as bullets or shells existed."

Over the Top is also the title of a dreadful 1987 film in which Sylvester Stallone played a truck driver trying to become an arm-wrestling champion - a fine example of the second meaning to which OTT has been put.

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The plot was over the top, the rock songs on the soundtrack were over the top, the acting and the budget were all ridiculously over the top. (Years later Stallone admitted that he agreed to be in the film only because the producers kept offering him more money and because he thought no one would see it.)

The digital age has conferred a third meaning on OTT.

In the communications sphere, "over the top" means films and other such things that are downloaded legally via the internet rather than by traditional broadcast means.

Pirates who plunder ships on the high seas must be relieved that some of their digital competitors have now gone straight.

Perhaps it is good that words once mired in sadness take on a lighter aspect as history and events move on. Those soldiers who went over the top between 1914 and 1918 might have been amused to know that their phrase is now used to describe shiny cat-suits, sequinned dog collars and easy access to entertainment.

E-mail your observations on words and language to Sue de Groot on degroots@sundaytimes.co.za or follow her on Twitter: @deGrootS1